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THE RESULT OF 
THE VITAL ENERGY OF PLANTS 



A NEW, TRULY GREAT DISCOVERY 



ALBERT ALBERQ, 



AUTHOR OP 



"The FiiORAii King, a Life of Linn^us," 

" Fabled Stories from the Zoo," 

'GusTAvus Vasa and His Stirring Times," 

'Charles XII and His Stirring Times," Etc. 



Cbicago: 

jFraternal printing Co. 

1899. 







430.38.} 

MAY 24- II 



The spell of severe winter, January and February, '99, 
opened my eyes for the study of a branch of nature hitherto 
almost entirely neglected. As it may be of some use in 
opening up a new field, and is of most interesting and 
fascinating nature, I will make a minute record of it. 

It came about in this way: I was frequently taking my 
meals at a German restaurant, southeast corner of Sixty- 
first and State streets, Chicago, where I had observed some 
ferns in the front window, and on Sunday January 29, '99, 
I observed that their contours were faithfully delineated 
on an enlarged and elongated scale on the frosted front- 
window pane, and that also an evidently dry specimen of 
a geranium in the left corner was clearly depicted. Then 
I observed that on each of the five dining tables, placed in 
front of the four side windows, were glasses, or tumblers, 
containing each a stalk or two of celery, and to my utter 
astonishment, that at the bottom of each of these plate- 
glass windows were most vividly depicted stalks of celery 
with sprigs and leaves, and that each of these ice-portrai- 
tures or ice photographs was exceedingly thick, quite bas- 
relief, in complete accordance with the pulpy celery stems, 
the majority of which, please observe, had already been 
eaten, and thus only left as a reminiscence of themselves 
these frosty tracings on the windows, as those remaining 
in the tumblers were only thin and small and without 
scarcely any leaves, mere tufts being suffered to remain, in 
fact, the rejected ones left over from the dinner. I drew 
the attention of my companion and of the two waitresses 



(one being the daughter of the proprietor ) to the phenom- 
enon, and we were all highly interested and amazed. 

I have since continued my espionage into this secret 
branch of nature, as I shall further relate, but only in cel- 
ery have I found the extraordinary vital force displayed in 
such an amazing capacity as to form its counterpart in 
quite thick or heavy bas-relief, which conclusively proves 
that there is no other plant endowed with such an extraor- 
dinary powerful vitality, and must, therefore, truthfully 
bear out the assertions of its life and energy bestowing 
power. Make the experiment and judge for yourself. 

Enticed by this glimpse into the secrets of nature I 
began a pilgrimage in more down town situated districts 
and also on the north side, and everywhere I have found 
that these tracings are no freaks of "Jack Frost," but are 
the result of a perfectly-arranged system of nature— as 
how else could it be? ~ And I have endeavored to classify 
them as follows, which everyone can compare and verify 
for himself as I have done over and over again. 

My next observation was in the kitchen of a friend, 
where I told his family that they had had cabbage for 
dinner. "Yes, yesterday. How do you know? Do you 
smell it still?" "No, but I see it on the windows. There 
you see the cabbage leaves quite plainly." And so they 
did. My friend, who is of a very investigating turn of 
mind (being an eager spiritualist), next drew my attention 
to two large windows on a saloon on the northwest corner 
of Thirty-tirst and Dearborn streets, nearly opposite, and 
her^ a most gorgeous display of tropical plants, interlaced 
with feathery tracings, presented itself. It lasted several 
days— as long as the intense cold did. Later on I saw its 
equal only at a large saloon, corner of North Clark and 
Superior streets. On numerous other saloon windows were 

4 



somewhat similar tropical displays, although none so 
beautiful as particularly on saloons where they sell Swedish 
punch, the favorite intoxicating drink of that nationality, 
which is made from arrack, distilled from cocoanut, rice 
and sugar cane, which the Swedes import from the West 
Indies, and which may thus explain the tropical display 
caused by the effluvium thereof. Sometimes in adulter- 
ated state made from the saccharine of common licorice, 

I have always thought the name of "sample room" 
being an idiotic name for these places, but I verily 
acknowledge its appropriateness, for these frosty tracings 
evidently displayed samples of the various mysterious dis- 
tilled ingredients which had been uncorked at the bar, and 
with which the air was surcharged, impressing their still 
extant vitality on the moist plate glass. 

The fancy bakeries and drug stores alone vie with the 
saloons in their display, although not quite so gorgeous nor 
so diversified. 

The vital force of plants, as of everything else, is invis- 
ible and imponderable and impalpable, and can therefore 
not be annihilated, but in this instance makes its effect 
visible in the icy tracings. I would feel inclined to hold 
with the theosophists that it is the astral body or vital 
force of the plant thus becoming visible, but I will defer 
that opinion until later on, when further experiments, 
cited in this paper, may enable me to make such a startling 
assertion. But the all-pervading soul of the universe must 
perforce permeate every plant as well. 

Three tobacconists, and saloons with their tobacco 
counters near the window, furnished a few tobacco leaves 
in ice tracings, of which, however, none seemed complete, 
but were cut in halves or thirds of the leaves in their 
entirety. 

5 



l^ext I took stock of the window of a Greek fruit 
dealer on Thirty-tirst street, and in company with another 
companion was much delighted to find ice tracings of 
various kinds of fruit foliage and of two distinct pine- 
apples on their stems. A candy store near by presented a 
curious, very long, prickly, tapering stem, but otherwise 
only enlarged crystals, thrown higgledly-piggledly about 
—emanations of sugar, no doubt. On a small restaurant 
window were thrown pell-mell enlarged specimens of vari- 
ous cereals. This I have afterward found generally to be 
the case on restaurant windows, as well as on those of 
baker shops, private dining rooms, living rooms and bed 
rooms, but like at the tobacconists these cereals or leaves 
are never complete, but like chopped off. 

In a small Swedish restaurant, 3205 Wentworth ave. , I 
observed a curious thing. The usual display of cereals and 
vegetables were observable on the heavily frosted windows. 
The little desk where the cash was received was, contrary 
to custom, placed near the low side window of the inner 
dining room. There I saw some vegetable leaves, but also 
a perpendicular strip about eighteeh inches long and two 
inches wide, of the exact reproduction of ^ lace, such as 
waiting-maids occasionally display on their coquettish 
aprons, the same pattern being continuous all through and 
particularly heavy, as if crochet work, ice delineation of 
cotton or worsted. I asked the girl if she had had such 
an apron on, and she replied: "Yes, yesterday." She, 
like the others present, of course only laughed at these 
curious freaks of "Jack Frost." But there will be others 
whom these discoveries will set prying into the secrets of 
nature and who will be prone to clasp their hands, even 
when trembling with cold, in adoration of the Creator and 



6 



His wondrous ways, as displayed in ice tracings or palen- 
genesis. 

Next day I inspected several windows of dry goods 
merchants, but found nothing, except where woolen stuffs 
were exposed, when they generally displayed grass and 
foliage, plainly such large herbage as Australian sheep 
graze on, the large windows at Messrs. Griesheimer & 
Co., facing Lake street, corner of South Clark street, fur- 
nishing very fine specimens. Meat markets showed sim- 
ilar herbage tracings, although coarser and somewhat 
chopped off, and so did leather findings and even shoe 
stores. 

A paint store window on Monroe street sampled vari- 
ous groups, or big splashes, of enlarged mineral crystalliza- 
tions, and so did a printer's ink store on Harrison street. 
But linen, or rather cotton shirt displays, seemingly pro- 
duced nothing anywhere but snow-flakes, moisture frozen 
from within in the regular way; nor stationery and period! 
cals exhibited for sale, for these latter were indeed the 
dead letter within, that require human intelligence to en- 
dow it with life. 

Empty store windows and doors were devoid of icy 
tracings, there generally being no moisture within to fur- 
nish the drawing materials for "Jack Frost," and no 
plants or animals defunct, still endowed with particles of 
undying vitality, to supply the patterns. 

Scarcely a day passed during this cold weather that 
did not add charming demonstrations of the frosty flowers 
left by the vital energy of plants. Thus on the night of 
February 9 I called upon a family at 3129 Wentworth ave., 
to see if the plants in their front parlor had made any 
ice portraitures. Being such cold weather they had shut 
off their front parlor a day or two previously, and removed 

7 



all the plants into the warm dining room. The owner, 
who is an old gardener and feeling much interested, pro- 
posed that we should look into the bay window of the front 
parlor, where plants had stood; we did so, drew up the 
blinds, and were all much delighted to find the window 
panes full of very beautiful and magnified ice leaves, par- 
ticularly so the upper front pane of glass. This will be 
sure to be the case at innumerable other places where plants 
stand or have stood, so you had better look and judge for 
yourself. Their bed rooms had all large specimens of 
cereals, impressions of the wheat, or rye, that had passed 
through bodies, whether by breathing or exhalation. 

The saloon, southeast corner of Sixtieth and State 
streets, was new papered on February 1. It being a very 
cold day the consequence was that at night the entire two 
large front windows were covered with an uncommonly 
thick layer of ice tracings of cereals, the effect of the paste 
used during the day. I drew the attention of the proprie- 
tor to it, who at once perceived the phenomenon of the 
powerful emanations of the cereals of which the paste was 
made, and as I was curious I called again the following 
afternoon, when we both observed that mostly everywhere 
the tracings of cereals lay in uniform layers, just as the 
paperhanger's brush had affixed the paste on the long 
paper strips, by strokes right and left, which, however, 
had been effected in the adjoining back room, but having 
once been transfixed on the back of the paper, now in the 
big bar room, to judge by appearance, had evidently trans- 
mitted by vibration its influence on the large window glass 
panes, perhaps accelerated by the paperhanger's brush 
when smoothing down the paper on wall and ceiling. In 
the smoke rooms ice tracings of tobacco leaves were plainly 
visible during several cold days. 

8 



The windows of laundries and of barber shops seemed 
to have somewhat similar small patterns of frost, for 
which I could find no better explanation and term than 
frozen soap suds. 

I found that large and fashionable stores or restau- 
rants were generally too well heated to allow ' 'Jack Frost' ' 
to draw any beautiful or interesting figures on their win- 
dows, the small and poorly heated stores furnishing by far 
the best examples. 

Mrs. Charles Howard, 6558 Stewart ave., a very promi- 
nent lady theosophist of Chicago, who after having heard 
a portion of this paper read, looked in her own house to 
see if she might discover any sign of ice palingenesis and 
soon found an exemplar on a window pane, in front of 
which had chanced to be left a small jar of preserved 
grapes, in consequence of which a couple of large bunches 
of grapes had developed on the frosted window. 

At the grocery southeast corner of Thirty-first street 
and Princeton ave., I again saw the phenomenon of the 
celery thick bas relief stalks and thin foliage. 

Now compare all these and other various trades and 
occupations, and judge for yourself, always bearing in 
mind that the celery at your green grocer will furnish the 
finest specimens of undj^ing energy and that "Jack Frost" 
therefore seemingly most emphatically endorses celery as 
a conserver and restorer of vitality resuscitating in itself. 

Nearly thirty years ago I resided at a large farm in 
Sweden, and I then often observed that our windows 
during severe cold became frosted with beautiful pictures 
of spruce firs, in long lines along the bottom of the window 
panes. My friends suggested that it was caused by the 
adjoining spruce fir forest, and so, no doubt, it was, but 
not by photographic reflections from without, but as ema- 

9 



nations from within, for there was an intervening avenue 
of maple and elm, and stables and sheds, and large fields 
between the manor house and the forest, which was quite 
an English mile off, but we used spruce fir wood for fuel 
in our tall tile stoves, and it was the lingering, redolent 
air thereof, that still depicted these tiny images of its 
origin on the glass, these spruce fir tracings being on a 
diminutive scale, quite opposite to these various magnified 
specimens observed by me in Chicago, and which you can 
see for yourself anywhere when cold winter prevails. 

"Where have my eyes been all this time!" you may 
verily exclaim. 

And it is very curious to observe that while the tO' 
bacco leaves and cereals only show the ice figures of theii 
maimed forms, the celery plants on the contrary, plainly 
display the shape in its entirety, the stalk, the foliage, and 
if I mistake not, even partially the i;oot, although only 
the stalk, and very little of the foliage remained in front 
of the frosted windows, as in the instance at the German 
restaurant, first quoted in this paper. And regarding the 
appearance of spruce firs in entire, though diminutive 
shape, on the windows at the Swedish farm, of course 
there never had been in the room any but small pieces of 
spruce fir corded wood, and which had been consumed by 
fire, but whose presence had been capable of depicting 
spruce fir trees in their complete arbor ici beauty. These 
seemingly conflicting evidences and conditions will set any 
speculative philosopher a-thinking. 

In 1888 I wrote a book, entitled: "The Floral King; a 
life of Linnaeus," published by W. H. Allen & Co., 13 
-Waterloo Place, London, W., and I believe, incorporated in 
the library of the Linnsean Society, Burlington House, 
Piccadilly, London, W. On page 141 the great naturalist 

10 



refers to the phenomenon of ice palingenesis already in 
1761, as follows: 

"I received a month ago, from the Councillor of Com- 
merce, the Honorary Herr Burgencrona, a quantity of tea 
plant seeds. I tried them in water, to see if they were 
sound, but found that they were decayed although the 
kernel appeared sound, which generally happens with the 
seeds of the tea plant. I poured water from the water jug 
into the hand basin in which the seeds lay, and macerated 
for eight entire days, the water became brown, the seeds 
were taken away and sown. This brown water remained 
another eight days, if not more. I found great pleasure 
in observing how the brown water separated itself from 
the clear water in the hand basin, and looked like a paint- 
ing of brown shrubs in the liquid water, and thought I saw 
here a species of palingenesis. At last the water froze in 
the cold room, and perfectly retained the figure which the 
tinged water had before, so that the ice lay in the hand 
basin like branches and leaves. The ice was about an inch 
thick, and between the branches the water had not formed 
the slightest ice. It is very strange that I have not seen 
anything similar. I showed it to Herr Adjunctus Melan- 
der and Magister Docens Bergman, who both viewed it 
with the same asthonishment. The ice figures, which 
show themselves on the windows, are flat, and filled up 
between the branches with ice. There have been those 
who have thought that this comes from vegetable exhala- 
tions, perhaps, after they have passed through the bodies 
of animals. It is noteworthy that the water which was 
in the water jug was also frozen, but as no tea plant seeds 
had been^soaked in it, it had frozen in the regular way, 
according to the laws of crystallization ad angulos, as salts 



11 



are crystallized, for which reason Newton says that water 
is a liquid salt. * C. Linn^us. ' ' 

It will perhaps be necessary to explain what Linnseus 
means by Palingensis, and as it bears directly on the matter 
in question I will quote "Paracelsus," as re-capitulated by 
Dr. Franz Hartmann in his splendid work upon the writ- 
ings of that famous Swiss philosopher of 400 years ago, and 
published 1891 by the American Publishers Corporation, 
New York, page 346: 

"Palingenesis. If a thing loses its material substance, 
the invisible form still remains in the light of nature (the 
astral light); if we can re-clothe that form with visible 
matter, we may make that form visible again. All matter 
is composed of three elements — sulphur, mercuiy and salt. 
By alchemical means we may create a magnetic attraction 
in the astral form, so that it may attract from the ele- 
ments (the A'kasa) those principles which it possessed be- 
fore its mortification, and incorporate them and become 
visible again. ( "De Resuscitationibus." Paracelsus. ) 

Note by Dr. Franz Hartmann: "Plato, Seneca, Eras- 
tus, Avicenna, Averroes, Albertus Magnus, Caspalin, Car- 
danus, Cornelius Agrippa, Eckartshausen, and many 
others wrote about the palingenesis of plants and animals. 
Ivircher resurrected a rose from its ashes in the presence of 
Queen Christina of Sweden, 1687. The astral body of an 
individual form remains with the remnant of the latter 
until these remnants have been fully decomposed, and by 
certain methods, known to the alchemist, it may be re- 
clothed with matter and become visible again." 

Will that not hold good also with the human body? 
we may reasonably ask and explain and justify spiritism, 
if that, indeed, were needed, and furthermore advance the 
principle and practice of cremation, that the remimnt body 

12 



may not too long be undergoing the process of decomposi- 
tion, and thus nullify "in that sleep of death what 
dreams may come." It takes from about nine to eleven 
years for a corpse to chemically disintegrate, or entirely 
divest itself of its earthly remnants and become a denuded 
skeleton. 

To shorten the time for the spiritual consiousness of 
the astral body, while still adherent to the corporal rem- 
nants, would that not be good, or would it be wicked, or 
none-effectual? 

As yet I have not had an opportunity to inspect the 
exhalations or emanations that may present themselves on 
the sometimes frosted windows of fish stores and game 
stores, nor undertaker's morgues and the more grewsome 
dissecting rooms and on tombs with glass windows— all 
fraught with the mysteries of death, or may be, astral life. 

I am not sufficiently conversant with spiritism to know 
if there have been any authentic physical manifestations 
or materializations by spirits, whose bodies have been 
cremated or otherwise perished through fire. It would be 
Interesting to learn, authentically, as it would bear di- 
rectly on the subject in question, whether "the astral body 
of an individual form remains with the remnants of the 
latter until these remnants have been fully decomposed," 
to quote Dr. Franz Hartmann, — when logically the astral 
body belonging to the cremated body or remnants, which 
undergo immediate decomposition, or transmutation, 
would at once pass on to a higher spiritual plane. We 
might, or we might not, thus gain immediate accession to 
a more beatified condition, by cremation one way or 
another. 

I read some little time ago of a terrible explosion of 
fifty-five tons of black gunpowder, near Toulon, in France, 

13 



Sunday, March 5, 1899. About sixty people were blown 
into fragments. The explosion it is believed, was caused 
by chemical decomposition of smokless powder. Now, 
with which scattered limb of each individual did the astral 
body or spirit make the ascent? And descended, as each 
individual limb would not entirely decompose for some 
considerable time, with which did the astral body elect to 
stay, or did it not rather stick to each individual limb, 
and in that manner became entirely torn asunder, into so 
many cloudy shreds, or did it probably remain with the 
brains? But, then, of course, they were scattered, too- 
poured out of the sculls like hash or stirabout from a cup. 
With which part then, did the astral consciousness remain? 
An enigma, indeed, for any psychologist. The contempla- 
tion of these queries might make the staunchest theoso- 
phist quake in his shoes for fear of being mixed up in, or 
rather say, scattered -promiscuously about in any kind of 
explosion. 

Or, to follow up the purport of this essay, will not each 
individual limb retain a stunted or abrogated vital force, 
of which the chopped-up cereals and tobacco leaves gave an 
indication, when displaying their maimed portions in atten- 
uated ice tracings, or palingenesis on the frosted windows? 
There is certainly a suggestion of comparison. Or will the 
scattered limbs, as in the case of the maimed celery plants, 
which nevertheless displayed their entire form on the frosty 
windows, retain the vital force in its entirety? Or as the 
effect of the burned pieces of spruce fir wood evinced still 
retain in their redolent essence their entire form, or like 
as Linnaeus found the seed in the tea plant efflorescent in 
an entire ice tea plant? I don't intend this for a pun, but 
just think of it. Nature's conundrums. I must perforce 
acknowledge myself an agnostic in this respect. Yes, with 

14 



which UQdecayed particles does the spirit or astral body 
remain? Is it a case of attenuation? Or of division? Or is 
it a case of cellular or molecular multiplication? Or always 
of radiation? Or of vibration? Which is it? Which, which? 
Oh, "what fools these mortals be!" Are we not told, that 
"Spirit" is God, God is omnipresent in every minutest 
thing, what does it matter then if we were blown into 
atoms we may profess? Each atom is imponderable, in- 
destructible, impalpable, a part of "the incomprehens- 
ible original motive power, " to quote Linnaeus. But has 
each individual atom also individual consciousness? Ay, 
"there's the rub," but I will tell you: The never failing 
instinct of every individual atom proclaims the ever pres- 
ent intelligent volition of an Omnipotent God. 

A practical illustration may be added: If a man has a 
leg or arm amputated, he may even for some time be -un- 
conscious thereof, and after the operation for a long time 
still feel the usual extension of the limb, and the astral 
toes and fingers, so to speak, being occasionally benumbed 
by cold. What does this infer? But after some length of 
time the feeling ceases. What does this infer, if not that 
the segregated limb has by this time completely decom- 
posed and withdrawn its astral counterpart from the main 
body? It is related how a man had his nose badly hurt, and 
to repair the same another man kindly allowed a part of 
his skin to be cut off and grafted on the injured nose. All 
went merrily for a long time, but finally the generous man 
who had allowed a patch of his skin to be donated to the 
other man's nose died, and after a little while the skin 
patch on the nose began to decompose and had to be taken 
away, or it would have infected the entire artificial nose, 
and made the whole affair rotten throughout. What are 
we to infer from that, but that the astral body of the de- 

15 



fimct man was on account of the chemical decomposition 
leaving the putrid corporeal remains, and likewise withdrew 
its last vital influence from the patch of skin on the nose 
aforesaid. It sounds almost ridiculous, but it was no 
laughing matter for the man with the artificial nose. 

On contemplating the other extreme — the astral 
bodies attached to drowned corpses, confined within sub- 
merged hulks of wrecked vessels at the bottom of the 
seas — will it not suggest to our contemplation, or, at any 
rate, to our imagination, that these water-bound sprites, 
being tied to these human remnants or bodies, which are 
doomed to resist decomposition for a much longer, nay, 
indifferent period, must mean non-liberation or non-sep- 
aration to them in tiiis saline submarine world, and thus 
present to our imagination a lively astral community 
within and around the hulks of all submerged wrecks — a 
kind of ghostly "American Hotel " life, or, as Macbeth has 
it, "cribbed, cabined and confined?" A phase of astral 
life, I believe, not hitherto invaded from a theosophical 
point of view. A weird, uncanny place and phase to con- 
template, but yet a factor in astral plane, undesirable to 
dwell long among, unless the prolonged spiritual or astral 
imprisonment, in comparison with the period pending a 
new re-incarnation, or mundane existence (in some pisca- 
torial shape, perhaps, taking the watery element into con- 
sideration, and that the larger fishes, at least, are by no 
means devoid of instinct or elementary intelligence and 
passions, as witness the furious combats between whales), 
unless to the astral entities, or consciousnesses, these apal- 
ling years may seem only like mere fleeting moments. 

Did it ever strike your fancy, as it has forcibly done 
mine, that those globular, bloated looking fishes, like 
round heads, floating about the salt main, frightfully 

16 



resembling severed human heads, might appropriately 
be considered as representing the swelled heads of glutton- 
ous city fathers or boodling aldermen, that have ultimately 
received their meed in an oceanic shipwreck and now go 
prowling about, bristling, gloating, glaring to see whom 
they may devour, still intent upon a grab in their pisca- 
torial, punitive existence, as the theosophical theory 
might suggest, living out their "liarma," until the period 
of passing on to a higher plane has arrived? I never see 
any of those bloated looking piscine physiognomies, but, 
grinaly smiling, I say to myself: "Might not that be some 
cruel uncle, or defrauding trustee, or the pugnacious 
villain of some human melodrama?" And if everything 
has an astral body or counterpart, which the frostflowers 
led us to speculate upon and assert, what will the astral 
bodies of the slimy monsters of the deep be like? It 
makes the blood curdle and the nerves shudder to specu- 
late thereon. Some of those curious creatures go about 
with their own electric lamps stuck up before their eyes 
on a horny bracket, and some have eyes that emit their 
own electric light. A most wonderful world, that sub- 
marine realm, but what position, if any, does it occupy in 
the evolution of "Karma," or transit of astral life? we 
may ask, since astral or spiritual consciousness does not 
detach itself until final decomposition is arrived at, nec- 
essarily retarded by the saline aquatic element. 

It has several times been asserted during the last 
thirty years that the fishermen at the mouth of the river 
Porto in Portugal are able to restore a drowned person to 
life still after twenty-four hours immersion in the water, 
which seems to bear out later scientific assertions that it 
takes from three to thirty-six hours for life to quit the 
body, that is, the vital force to exude, that no one dies 

17 



instantly, from which, however, we are forced to exempt 
those that are burned up, somewhat reluctantly admitting 
the truth of the theosophical belief that the astral or 
or spiritual body remains until the last remnant is decayed, 
and of which the radiation of life force from apparently 
dead plants, but still endowed with particles of extant 
vitality, have given us an exemplification as demonstrated 
by the frost flowers frequently referred to in this paper. 

If it be true that the Portuguese fisher folk can restore 
life yet after twenty-four hours immersion in the water, 
why has not the world at large utilized this knowledge? I 
heard it related already in my youth, and have since read 
about it, as a mere curious item, but have to acknowledge 
having hitherto been as reprehensibly silent upon the 
matter as those to whose function or department it cer- 
tainly belonged to elucidate the world. 

From our observation of ice tracings the frost seems in 
a manner to supply the means of astral resurrection ol 
plants, which Paracelsus and Dr. Hartmann refer to as 
being one of the secrets of the alchemists of bygone ages, 
for the plants plainly demonstrated by their ice palinge- 
nesis that they possess an innate power of extending their 
influence even into frost. With frost and cold we gener- 
ally associate death, just as with genial heat we associate 
life. But ice is not death, as witness the whole arctic 
region, replete with cold blooded animal life. Thus, then, 
we may infer that the frost flowers have been for the 
nonce imbued with life from their parent efflorescent 
plants, for else how could they have been called into exist- 
ence? And exist they must certainly do. Do we not here 
stand face to face with another wonder of creation — ice 
palingenesis, or evolution of a plant into a frost flower 
counterpart, an ice shadow of its material ego, which 

18 



could not have been called into existence had the parent 
plant no self consciousness, no vital energy, no ego, no soul! 

The great electrician, Thomas Edison, holds that 
plants possess consciousness. I am perfectly convinced of 
it, to- wit, if you deprive a creeper of its support, it will 
soon send out an eager tendril to find another hold, and I 
kiss with reverence every hand that kindly tends to the 
comfort and well being of window plants, moving them 
according to the sunlight they so much need and love, 
lopping them, and even talking to them in a way with 
"such love as soul to soul affordeth" children of the same 
creator. And in this light also the most ancient Hindoo 
sect, "The Jaines" (which means "the conquerors of self"), 
look upon all plants, and protect and cherish them accord- 
ingly. How much we boastful Christians have to learn 
from the misunderstood and maligned Hindus! 

Have the plants any object in thus mirroring them- 
selves in fancy ice tracings, or is it a mere freak of the 
plant, as we hitherto thought it was a freak of "Jack 
Frost?" Depend upon it, there is no such thing as freak 
or chance in nature, although the transient existence of 
the frost flower on the glass may appear to us as purpose- 
less as it is inexplicable to most of us. Yet they will 
occur again and again as often as opportunity affords, a 
bit of nature, tiny and transient, I grant, but yet a phase 
of nature although hitherto ignored or laughed at. But 
from the attention drawn to the frost flowers I hope you 
will henceforth find them as interesting as heretofore you 
have found them, and always will find them, exquisitely 
beautiful, and that you may try and find out their cause 
and their mission. 

I cannot leave this subject without again quoting my 
illstrious countryman, Linnaeus, the "Floral King," p. 131, 

19 



as he with reverence apostrophizes the Maker of all these 
wonders : "I behold only the back of the Infinite, Omnis- 
cient and Almighty God, where He went forth, but I felt 
dazed. I tracked the footsteps over the fields of nature, 
and I observed in every one — even in those which I could 
scarcely descry — an infinite wisdom and power, an incon- 
ceivable perfection. I saw there how all animals were 
maintained by the vegetation, the vegetation by the soil, 
the soil by the globe, how the globe was turned night and 
day around the sun, which gave it life, how the sun with 
the planets and fixed stars rolled as on an axle, an incon- 
ceivable number and infinite space, and were kept up in 
the void nothingness by the incomprehensible motive 
power, all things' Being, the commander and mainspring 
of all causes, the Lord and Master of the world. If we 
wish to call Him Fate, we commit no fault, for everything 
hangs on His finger ; if we wish to call Him Nature, we 
neither commit any fault, because from Him everything 
has originated ; if we wish to call Him Providence we also 
speak rightly, for everything obeys His will and guidance. 
He is entirely Sense {Seyism), entirely Sight; entirely Hear- 
ing, he is Soul {Anima), He is Spirit {A7iimus), He alone is 
self sufficient! No human guess can comprehend this 
form; it is enough that he is an eternal and infinite 
divine Being, who is neither created nor born, a Being 
without whom nothing exists, that is made, a Being who 
has founded and built all this, who everywhere shimmers 
before our eyes, without our being able to see him, and 
who can only be beheld by our thoughts, for such a great 
Majesty sits upon such a sacred throne that there no one 
is admitted but the soul. " 

How beautiful all this, how true, how incontrovertible! 
"The incomprehensible original motive power," as Lin- 

20 



naeus has it, so stupendous, so adorable that we perforce 
must worship it, and for the sake of comprehensive brev- 
ity call it God, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God! 
Monotheism and pantheism comprehended and compressed 
into one, of whom we are part and parcel, but at which 
sublime conception our irreverent thoughts sometimes 
rebel, for that would make God participant in our crimes, 
our follies, our fallacies, which queries have often been 
mooted. But relevant queries which often have worried 
me individually, I will reluctancy note down : Is this our 
omnipresent Godhead also manifest in the grotesque, the 
comic, the irrational, the abnormal and kindred things? 
I can understand the Godhead using crime and folly in all 
their phases and shades to school our free will, but how 
about some of those other qualities and conditions, just 
enumerated — how about the grotesque and the innocently 
comical? Well, yes, we are forced to admit the omnipres- 
ence of "the incomprehensible original motive power," 
even in all those things, for God cannot help himself (so 
to speak without irreverence) from being omnipresent, for 
He is all in all, nothing whatever can exist outside of 
Him, or It, or Us, call it whatever you may, for "Spirit" 
is God, the intelligent force is here within us, about us, 
that cannot be refuted, and the conviction makes me feel 
that I may be perfectly justified in enjoying the grotesque, 
the comic, aye, even the follies of the world, when viewed 
from the right standpoint of innocent mirth or contempla- 
tive philosophy. 

Eeturning to my friend, the spiritualist, to recount 
my frosted window investigations, I again quite unexpect- 
edly lit upon another curious experience of ice tracings. I 
observed that on the small upper side-pane of the bay 
window of the room in which his son slept, there was a 

21 



most beautiful design of a wooded hill, at the bottom of 
which lay a small craft at anchor. A little way up the 
hill was a flat-roofed house and still higher another build- 
ing and a fine church with a tower. The architecture of 
each was very distinct. Two steeples and a flag staff were 
seen in the distance. Some ravines intersected the lower 
part, and trees and shrubs, rich in foliage, were scattered 
about. Above appeared an arch of clouds. It was a most 
exquisitely beautiful ice tracing, of which I drew a faint 
delineation on paper. I requested the family to ask the 
son on his return in the evening what he had dreamt the 
night previously, for I thought that possibly we might 
here be on the track of thought-photography, with which 
Boston has surprised the world, but the young man could 
remember nothing. However, the family intended shortly 
to remove to their old home in a rural place near Cleve- 
land, Ohio, which the father declared somewhat resembled 
the exquisite ice-tracing. When I saw the son (a young 
gentleman about thirty-two years old) a week later, he 
admitted that he frequently dreamt of their old home in 
Ohio, although he could not recollect having done so on 
the night in question. So that the inference of dream- 
thought transmission may thus still be left open. 

Since then, returning one night about 8 o'clock by the 
State street cable car, I observed on all of the car windows 
opposite me exceedingly fine ice tracings. One as of a 
small part of a city, situated on the banks of a river, 
where a coal or grain chute was visible, and a vessel was 
lying beneath, as if receiving the cargo. Another fur- 
nished the interior of a tunnel with all the supports for an 
excavation, and a third was full of curious machinery and 
gear. I admit willingly that "Jack Frost" in this instance 
could easily cause anyone's imagination to run riot, — but I 

22 



will ask you, who is of a practical mind, and of course un- 
derstand these things much better than we old fo^es do: 
"Is it possible that some workingmen had just been travel- 
ing homeward in this car, and had these images in their 
minds eye,— and gazing intently, or staring vacantly, 
whichever you may call it,— with the retinas of their 
own eyes had unconsciously transferred or positively 
photographed in ice tracings these mental impressions on 
the opposite negative moist plate glass, an object-lesson of 
co-related forces?" 

While thus musing I fell into ruminating how our 
breath, invisible in warm atmosphere, in frosty weather 
becomes visible, in a manner materialized, as I saw illus- 
trated by all the passengers present, puffing away like 
little steam engines, emitting the molecular particles with 
which their respective engines had been fed. 

Your own breath will in frosty air convince you that 
it materializes in infinitesimal crystallizations before your 
very eyes. 

In conjunction with this I may mention that on some 
empty store windows were visible innumerable enlarged 
snowflakes, dotting the pane of glass on the inside, the 
moist atmosphere having crystallized in this manner of 
natural law of liquid salt. 

And if you breathe on a piece of glass, and immediately 
apply a microscope thereon, you will discover tracings of 
beautiful foliage. 

A physician informed me also that if you freeze urine 
in a small phial and submit it to a microscope you will 
discover beautiful foliage therein. 

I would suggest to some physicians who may become 
acquainted with these our investigations of ice palingenesis 
that they would make experiments by freezing — exposing 

23 



embryos and foetuses, in all their stages, to the influence of 
strong frost to see if any effect would be visible on the 
frosted glass. Such experiments might bring forth won- 
ders, and in a manner take the place of alcohol preserva- 
tions. 

Indeed, taking into consideration all these evidences 
and tests that crowd in upon us, particularly from the 
vegetable world, the Biblical symbol of the "Tree of Life," 
and the accepted term of the "Tree of Genealogy" assume 
almost sacred character. 

Our remote ancestors in ancient Thule, when con- 
structing their Scandinavian mythology on the basis of 
their more remote Aryan ancestors', symbolized this 
"Tree of Life" in an ash tree, Ygdrasil, which extended 
its influence everywhere. How strangely things come 
round in the whirligig of time, now that we begin to con- 
ceive that a veritable system of foliage permeates all 
nature as exemplified in numerous microscopic things, and 
on which I shall now discant. After all our ancestors 
were, perhaps, not such fools as we take them; they must 
have possessed some intuitive knowledge. 

If you insert an incandescent electric light into a large 
chunk of ice you will be amazed by discovering tracings of 
beautiful foliage concealed therein, but this will probably 
only occur in impure ice, containing animal and vegetable 
matter, not in ice from distilled water; the test remains 
to be made. 

On the small, frosted windows of coal dealers there 
will occasionally be seen attempts at tracings of crystals 
and curious foliage, and also circles, with numerous irregu- 
lar rings, like the surface of blocks of wood, sawn across, 
displaying the year-rings of the arborial growth. Can it be 
possible, or might it not be possible, that the foliage dis- 

24 



coverable in a cliunk of ice, and the emanations from, or 
aura of, a chunk of coal have something in common, say a 
latent, abiding co-relation to each other In eternal cosmos, 
water (chaos' condensed steam?) made impure with the 
arbcrial astral, or soul, of anti-deluvian forests, which 
were compressed into coal layers eeons ago? "The same 
substances in different chemical spectrums." It is sug- 
gestive at any rate. 

I only ask some one else regarding all these phenom- 
ena, perhaps some scientist may suggest other, and more 
satisfactory explanations. 

The law of radiation, or the law of vibration, no doubt, 
may offer some solution of the frostflower phenomena, but 
by no means exhaustive in regard to all the phases alluded 
to in this paper, besides, these, as well as all other natural 
laws, accrue from the divine origin and volition within, — 
all manifestations of the all-pervading, God-imbued motive 
power of all things, whether purely physical or gradually 
merging into metaphysical. 

Of course I expect I shall be ignored, or at the best 
abused, or struck down with the academical rod, the 
aphorism that "a little learning is a dangerous thing," but 
I will meekly defend myself, or at any rate try to avert 
the blow, with the Shakespearian parry that, "there are 
more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are 
dreamt of in your philosophy, " and to which, I am sure, 
no academical expounder will as yet find satisfactory solu- 
tions, including some of those I have in an humble, unpre- 
tentious manner propounded in this paper. 

ALBEET ALBEEG, 
3555 Fifth Ave. , Author and Lecturer. 

Chicago, III., June, 1899. 



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